


Human

by Cactusepique



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, twissy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:30:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cactusepique/pseuds/Cactusepique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Somewhere, deep inside you, there's all the potential for a brilliant, generous, devoted scientist. I want to know if someone good could be made out of you, before I admit you're a lost cause."</p><p>Kate Stewart's got a plan for the Mistress. Chameleon-arched Missy, and alternative end for Death in Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Science leads

The clouds were all gone. 

Burned up. Totally burnt. Burnt to nothing, as the Doctor had said. 

Earth was safe for now, and Kate didn't have anything do to with it. Neither did the Doctor. A Cyberman — Clara Oswald's boyfriend, she'd reckoned — had done the job. This was something Kate had thought she'd never see — a Cyberman, holding a human protectively against his chest and then sacrificing himself to save them all. 

Yet it had happened. Today, the dead had saved the living, and Kate would make sure a tribute would be paid to them. Even if all the graveyards were empty now. 

She'd flown over the Channel in a Cyberman's arms. That memory was pretty blurry, but she was sure it had happened, the same way she was sure her savior was her father. She didn't need to see his face or hear his voice to know it was him. Who else would have caught her? 

Her Cyber-dad raised his weapon, aiming it at the Mistress. "No," Kate murmured, placing a hand on her father's arms and lowering it. "Stay behind me," she said, and she strode up to the Time Lady, her expression a perfect look of neutral determinism. 

"Oh! Look, it's the daughter again! How did you survive that fall? Daddy caught you, I see..." Missy had the time to joke before Kate punched her full force in the face. The Mistress stumbled back, shocked and disoriented. One could pinpoint the exact moment her mask came back in place, as she put on a mad, delighted grin. "See," she told the Doctor, "I told you I like her." 

"That's for pushing me out of that plane," Kate said, and she allowed herself to be proud of her little moment of bravery. Today was the day Kate Stewart had failed UNIT, but today was also the day she had punched the Mistress—formerly know by UNIT as the Master— in the jaw. This would also be the day she'd put an end to her crimes, she swore to herself. 

"Dad," she voiced, and her tone was gentle, yet it was a command. She didn't need to be explicit, she just knew he'd know what was expected of him. After all, he'd spent years discreetly mentoring her at UNIT. The Cyber-Brigadier jumped on the Mistress, and she fought him for a moment, but he was stronger than her. Kate sighed in relief when Missy calmed down, securely encased in the Brigadier's arms, one of them across her chest securing her in a vice-like grip. His other hand was around her throat, metal fingers ready to tighten and strangle her. The Time Lady was having a slight nosebleed due to Kate's punch. She didn't seem to care. 

"Kate.." the Doctor tried carefully, and he took her arm, but she freed herself brusquely. "SHUT. UP." she shouted. "For once in your long life, just shut up," she fumed. "And give me that device," she ordered, "give it," she said again when he hesitated. 

He held out the device to her, and she put it into her pocket. "Shut up, I'm trying to think!" she raged again when it seemed a flow of words was ready to stumble out of the Doctor's mouth. She couldn't allow him to talk, couldn't give him a chance to convince her to do things his way. In the corner of her eye, Kate saw Clara approaching the Doctor, taking his hand, whispering something to him. She didn't listen. She closed her eyes, focused on her breathing. When she looked up and spoke again, she was calm and collected —the UNIT chief scientist officer at work. She had made many mistakes today, and it had resulted in the death of many people and endangered the whole world. Now it was time to take some good decisions. 

"Right," she said. "Doctor, what happened to the plane? Did it crash? Did the Cybermen pull it apart?" 

"It blew up in flight. There's no survivor. I'm sorry Kate."

"Except you and her." 

"I managed to get into the TARDIS in time, and she teleported herself away." 

"What happened to Osgood? She wasn't in the cargo bay when I came there." 

The Doctor sighed deeply, rubbed a hand across his face. One glance at Missy and Kate knew. 

"You killed her, didn't you?" 

"I did." 

Something snapped inside Kate because the Mistress was admitting murder with such a tranquil, playful joy. As if it was nothing. She took a deep breath, forced herself to stay calm — cold, logical, straight to the point. That was how she needed to be. "We're going to do things my way, Doctor," Kate explained. "And you won't try to be clever with me or I'll kill her. Understood?" 

"Killing a Time Lady isn't that easy. She'll just regenerate." 

Kate couldn't help but smile. "You really think we're stupid, don't you Doctor?" she asked. "I give you every right to believe so. I've been a useless idiot today," she admitted quietly. "Agony," she carried on, "That's the secret of regeneration. Kill a Time Lord in the middle of a regeneration — just at the right moment, when the former body is dead, but the new one isn't ready yet— and the job is done. Kill a Time Lord instantly —a bullet in the head should do it— and it's done too." She smiled again, a cold, sarcastic smile. The look on his face had just told her she was right. 

"You don't intend to kill her then," he said tentatively. "If I obey you, you'll let her live." 

"Yes," Kate agreed quietly, doing her very best not to be upset with the Doctor, still caring so much for a woman who was everything he'd ever stood against. Her father had warned her, told her the two Time Lords had a unique, dysfunctional and yet very close relationship. She'd also read UNIT files thoroughly, even tough it hadn't prevented her from underestimating the Mistress. 

"What's your plan then?" Missy asked cheerfully, and Kate wanted to believe she was acting, putting on a relax, amused mask to fool them. She wanted to believe the Time Lady was afraid of what could happen to her. The Brigadier's arms tightened over the Mistress' body, pressing her painfully into him in warning. Cold fingers dug into the skin of her throat, and she swallowed hard. "How do you think you're going to stop me?" she still asked, breathless. 

"You turned our dead into Cybermen, you made them your puppets. You turned my father into something he despise. I'll make you human." 

Missy chuckled, a cackling sound that ended up into a pained moan as the Brigadier squeezed her throat. It was Kate's turn to force out a laugh —a dismissive sound to forget that the Doctor would have rushed to his childhood friend if Clara hadn't prevented him from doing so. Kate wasn't really enjoying this, but she needed to look confident, and mocking the Mistress sounded like a plan to not let herself be unsettled. "You tried to murder me. Don't expect him to be gentle with you." 

"You can't change me," Missy managed, her fingers clawing helplessly at the Cyberman's armor. 

"I'm sure I can," Kate proclaimed. "I read Martha Jones' files, and I know about Professor Yana." 

"He wasn't me." 

"And yet he was," the UNIT officer replied. "Somewhere, deep inside you, there's all the potential for a brilliant, generous, devoted scientist. I want to know if someone good could be made out of you, before I admit you're a lost cause." A smile again, warmer this time. To her father, to those dead, empty Cyberman's eyes. To the skeleton, the broken man beneath the armor. "After all, 'Science leads' is our motto." 

Missy gave her a smirk, barring her teeth. Her mouth was bloodied by the bleeding of her nose. She caught some of the blood with her tongue, making a great show of looking delighted by the taste of it."And you can drop the attitude," Kate muttered. "I know a show off when I see one." 

Ignoring Missy, she turned toward the Doctor. 

"Now you know what I want from you. I want you to use your chameleon arc on her."


	2. Chameleon arch

"I'd rather be killed than turned into a human," the Mistress declared like she'd the power to give orders and be obeyed. 

"I suppose you would," Kate shrugged. "You've always found your way back." 

"You should let them kill me, Doctor. You know I'll be right back," Missy said softly. 

Kate knew what this was. A promise not to leave him alone again. She looked at the Doctor for an instant, and he seemed so lost, distressed and weary that she almost felt guilty for what she was asking from him. Her eyes left him to focus on Clara. 

She was unable to read the young woman's face. 

 

"I could refuse to help you," the Doctor proclaimed, still opening the doors of his ship for them to step into it. "I could kill her myself. I would have done it if you hadn't stopped me." 

"You weren't going to kill her. You were going to do something clever with her device and teleported her away." 

It was a guess, yet Kate didn't miss the look on the Doctor's face, giving him away and telling her she was right. She looked at her father, still imprisoning the Mistress in a metal cage, and reminded herself that she'd the upper hand. 

"There's still torture," Kate said. "I'm reluctant to use it, but if it's the only thing that could get you to put that chameleon arch at use, I swear I'll make her scream." She was a show off, not unlike the Mistress, and pretending to be cold and cruel wasn't a hard job. She suddenly recalled her smug speech in front of the Cybermen, earlier this day. What a fool she'd been for thinking that everything was going to be alright. This Doctor had helped them to resolve the Zygon crisis a few months ago, and it had all been fine in the end. She'd trusted him, she always had. 

"You won't," the Doctor blurted out, and Kate did her best not to be hurt by the pure look of disbelief and horror on his face. 

"I absolutely will," she retorted. "We've got some nasty stuff, and the government won't bother once they'll know what she's done," she added casually. That woman had the blood of billions of her hands, and Kate wasn't sure she deserved pity. 

"You won't," the Doctor said again, more firmly this time. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart, I know you won't."

"I've once nearly destroyed London and killed its citizens to stop a Zygon incursion, don't forget it." 

"I stopped you." 

"Only because you had an alternative to offer." 

He was right, she wasn't sure she would be able to inflict pain on the Time Lady. The trick was to not let the Doctor see her doubts. 

"There's been an aftermath to that Zygon incursion. A crisis," she said to change the subject. "Have you already done that? Not that time when we summoned your eleventh self. The second time with the Zygons, it was your current face, but your hair was longer." 

"The haircut," he breathed out. "I though it was a joke about regeneration. No Kate, it's the first time I meet you since I've gotten this face." 

"Then you'll meet Osgood again, you'll smile at her, you'll work with her," Kate chocked out, tears forming in her eyes, "knowing that monster already killed her!"

"Kate," he murmured and reached for her, but she slapped him across the face, as hard as she could. She put her hands on the console to stop them from trembling, gazing blindly at the time rotor, briefly wondering what it would be like if none of this had happened and she was off on a trip with the Doctor. She'd intended to ask him for a trip one day, even if she knew her position as a leader of UNIT didn't really make her a potential companion. She'd dreamt she could go to some alien planets with him, even tough she knew her place was on Earth, her role to protect the planet. 

Now it was too late. He would never forgive her for forcing his hand. 

She was vaguely awarded of Clara trying to calm the Doctor. The young woman was on her side, she wanted to put an end to the Mistress' crimes too, but she wouldn't stand to see the Doctor suffering. 

"I could bring your little pet back, you know," Missy mused and it was the first time she spoke since the whole argument. "Not as a Cyberman of course, as a real person." 

"It's impossible." 

"Well, I don't think so," the Time Lady replied haughtily. 

"Dad, make her shut up." 

It was a trick. It had to be, and Kate wasn't going to fall for it, no matter how much she loved Osgood. 

 

The Brigadier had gagged the Mistress with a hand over her mouth. Kate and Clara watched as the Doctor worked silently on the chameleon arch.

"How could a Time Lord be made human? How could you be sure it will stop her from being evil?" Clara asked.

"I can't be sure," the UNIT officer admitted, "but it worked the last time. You see, everything she is as the Mistress would be conceal in a fob watch — her memory, her biology. The arch will give her a new personality, and she'll rebuilt herself a new life. It's a perfect disguise because she won't even know herself it is one. I don't know precisely how it works, but if think I could influence her positively."

Clara nodded slightly, her eyes focused on the Doctor. Kate knew she had questions, but she also knew she wouldn't ask them in front of the Doctor. Kate took a deep breath, trying to remain as calm and focus as possible. She only had the knowledge she'd gotten from Martha Jones' files to help her. Luckily, Jones had been thorough in her reports, and every bit of it was clever, straight to the essential and relevant. She new some traits of the Mistress' true Time Lady self would be preserved by the chameleon arch, but she hoped it will be the good aspects of her personality — her skills, her knowledge, her capacity to learn and create. 

"I'll need to put this on her head," the Doctor said, speaking for the first time since he'd begun his work. The Brigadier removed the hand he'd pressed against the Mistress mouth, releasing her head he'd hold tightly against his chest, and despite her respiratory bypass circuit Missy breathed heavily. The Doctor tried to place some complicated headset on her head, but her up do hairstyle didn't help. He undid it slowly, ceremoniously, and Kate didn't miss the way he tugged gently the pins out, the way he tangled leisurely the curls around his fingers as he went. She was sure Clara didn't miss it too. It was almost hypnotic, how dedicated he was at his task. Somehow the Mistress looked less dangerous with her hair framing her face, softening its sharp angles. 

"Come on Doctor," Missy whispered playfully. "I'm the queen of evil, you should crown me." 

A faint smile tugged at his lips, and he put the headset on her, then placed the fob watch in its place. The Mistress hands were shaky, her every move restrained by the Brigadier's vice-like grip, and yet she managed to grab hold on the hem of the Doctor's jacket. She murmured something, and it sounded foreign, melodious, pleading and Kate guessed it was Gallifreyan. The Doctor lifted a hand to her cheek, pressed his forehead against hers, whispering in turn something in his native language, his voice a little raspy as he did so. 

"Doctor," Kate warned as the two Time Lords closed their eyes. She didn't want them to use a language only them shared to plot against her, or use telepathy to do the same. 

"Shut up," he rasped, and titled his head to claim the Mistress' lips. Clara emitted a gasp of shock, and Kate wondered if she'd seen them kissing in the graveyard. It had been brief, they had been hidden by a tomb stone, Clara had been holding on for dear life on her Cyberman boyfriend...She stopped thinking about Clara to wonder wherever or not the Doctor was provoking her. He'd cried over the Master's body on the Valiant, and hadn't bothered who had seen it — why would he care now? It wasn't like in the graveyard tough— chaste and unhurried. It was ferocious and yearning, and it was quite a sight — The Doctor, kissing the Mistress, who was hold in the Brigadier's arms. She wondered if her father had always known there was a sexual aspect to the two Time Lords relationship. She wondered why he didn't try to separate them. 

Eventually the Doctor broke away, and there was a strange look on the Mistress face, something made out of sadness, betrayal and affection. "You just have to push that button," the Doctor told Kate roughly, making it clear he wouldn't be the one to do it. He deliberately turned his back on them and grip the railing firmly. After a moment of hesitation, Clara joined him. She put her hand on his. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize," she murmured. "I know how it feels." 

"I know you do," he said, hardly above a whisper. 

A look at the Mistress, at the fear and sadness Kate thought she could see in her ageless eyes, and she hit the button.


	3. You were the Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the delay. :S

The Mistress was screaming. 

Endless, painful screams filling the room and echoing loudly through Kate's skull. She didn't make any comment, she even made a point to keep watching as the Time Lady convulsed in The Brigadier's arms. Rewritting someone's entire biology was expected to be painful, and when it came to the Mistress, in a strange, sadistic kind of way, it just had to be so. 

Still, Martha Jones hadn't mentioned the pain in her report about the Doctor's own transformation into John Smith. 

"Pain is useless. Boring. Unbereable to watch," The Doctor said behind Kate, "but there's nothing I can do to help her." 

He wasn't talking to her, but to Clara, wide-eyed and concern written all over her features, even for the woman who'd turned her dead boyfriend into a cyberman. Even for the creature she'd threatened to kill moments before. Or perhaps it was for the Doctor, his clenched fists and cold voice. 

"It's almost done," the Doctor added softly, still not looking at the Mistress. 

And sure enough Missy's voice broke, her tremors turned into slight shudders and her screams into little, pathethic cries. Then her body went limp and she fell inconscious. 

"Wait," Kate ordered, extenting a hand toward the Doctor in warning. 

She approached Missy, and she took in the cold sweat on her forehead and the drying tears that had ruined her make-up. Then she noticed the Time Lady's chest wasn't moving. 

"She's not breathing," Kate panicked. "Doctor, she's not breathing!" 

He didn't move, and Kate felt her heart sinking heavily in her chest. She tried to ignore the maddening voices in her head telling her it was the first time she was directly responsible for someone's dead, teling her she'd just killed one of the last Time Lords; the Doctor's friend, a very old, very important creature. 

These voices telling her she'd failed again. These voices she couldn't ignore. 

"I killed her," she left out in a shocked murmur. 

"No, you didn't," the Doctor said. "If she died, then she choose to." 

"What do you mean?" 

"She told us she'd rather die than be turned into a human," he said, dangerously calm. "I don't know how she could have turned the chameleon arch against herself, but she does keep surprising me," he continued. "Still, she's a survivor. Death doesn't really concerned her, I've learnt." 

He moved toward her, lifted her heavy, dodling head, and pushed aside her hair to reveal her neck and seek her pulse. He remained silent, unterly focused for a few seconds. 

"She's alive," he declared. "Respiratory bypass, she doesn't need to breath like human do."

Kate felt a strang mix of relief and worries rushed through her. Yet she wasn't the first to point out the essential. 

"Then she's still a Time Lord," Clara stated, "it didn't work." 

"It works," the Doctor contradicted her, "when I said the chameleon arch rewrite your biology, it's actually more complicated than that. One of the hearts stopped, but it's still there in her ribcage, hidden even to her under a perception filter. In a moment her new, human way of breathing will kick in, and she won't be able to use her respiratoy bypass anymore."

He brushed a dark lock of hair out of her face. "She won't feel the passing of time anymore, won't know how to use telepathy. But you should expect her to dream about those two hearts." 

A deep shudder ran throught Missy's body, and then she was breathing again, shakily at first, but a few seconds later her breath become regular. "Here we go," commented the Doctor, almost regretfully. 

"Let me see," Kate commanded and he stept aside. She undid the buttons of the Mistress' jacket, and removed the cameo brooch of her throat, letting it fell carelessly to the floor, unaware of Clara picking it up and sliding it in her pocket. Then she opened the pale blouse, stopping briefly at the sight of the Edwardian corset encasing the Time Lady's chest, and she placed her hands just above her breasts, moving them in search of an eventual second heartbeat. 

"Time Lord's skin is supposed to be cold, isn't it?" she mused and didn't bothered to be answered. The skin beneath her fingertip was warm. 

"How long before she wakes up?" she inquired, tucking the Time Lady's clocthes back in place, refusing to be sidetracked, refusing to wonder if she was wearing that corset because she enjoy the restrain, or if it was some item of seduction. "Jones said it took you a few hours." 

"Then it will probably be the same for her, how would I know?" the Doctor answered dismissively, and Kate could tell she was annoying him. "Brigadier, you're getting ridiculous. You're holding her like a rag doll." 

The Brigadier released her, allowing the Doctor to lower her on the console floor, and then the cyberman stept over them and toward the door. 

"Dad, wait!"

Kate ran toward him as he was about to leave the TARDIS and he stopped, turning to face her but looking straight ahead, his dead eyes seeming unable to see her. 

"I don't know what to say," Kate admitted weakly, "but it didn't feel right letting you go like that." 

The Brigadier raised a metal hand to put it on his daughter's shoulder, then he pressed lightly, gently, in a small gesture of comfort a cyberman shouldn't be capable of, and Kate understood it was the best she could expect from her broken father. 

"Thank you," she murmured, and with that she opened the doors and stept outside to watch her dad's departure, flying in the clear blue sky and out of sight. 

"Goodbye Dad," she said to herself and then went back into the TARDIS, knowing she shouldn't have left the Doctor, the Mistress and Clara alone, even for barely a minute. 

She was relief to see they hadn't moved, but she felt her heartbeat quickening when she realised the Mistress was awake. Jones had said the first few minutes of consciousness after the transformation were the strategic ones; a precious moment of uncertainty, when the lie that will became the new life of the Time Lady was yet to be invented. A moment when everything heard by the subject will be taken as the truth, a precious moment when the Mistress was a new born, yet unaware of who she was. 

The Doctor shouldn't be the first person to be seen by her. 

"Hello," the Doctor murmured (a bit amazed, a bit broken, Kate couldn't tell), and lift a hand to the Mistress' cheeks, pushing aside locks of dark hair.

"Doctor," Missy smiled, a genuine, naive smile, full of recognition and yet wonder and uncertainty. "Doctor," she said again, and again, and again, her brow furrowing as she tried to make sense of that name, to remember a past and a relationship she couldn't recall. 

"It's okay, I'm here," the Doctor said, taking her hand. "I'm your friend, and I'm here. You're safe." 

It seemed to calm her a little, and yet her eyes left the Doctor, searching widly around her. 

"Where am I?" she asked, and Kate cursed herself. The Mistress hadn't be supposed to wake up inside the TARDIS, but she hadn't be supposed to wake up so quickly in the first place. Yet The Mistress didn't wait for any answer, and Kate supposed, from what she knew of the chameleon arch, that her brain was filling in the blanks, answering the unsaid questions behind the Mistress' eyes before she even got hold on them. 

Kate remembered Martha Jones telling her the Doctor had remembered her as someone close to him, someone he could trust to look after him. When she'd told him he was a teacher in 1930s England, he'd concluded she was his maid. Kate and Martha had both concluded Time Lords built the new, human life on the base of the Time Lord's one, and on the base of a survival purpose, as the transformation with the chameleon arch was usually done for hidding and avoiding a danger. 

She knew the Mistress will be naturally suspicious toward her, yet she had to get pass it and be seen by the former Time Lady as a friend. She took a deep breath and knelt beside the Doctor. 

"Hello," she said to Missy. "I'm Kate, we work together at UNIT," she said softly, trying to dismiss how scared she was of making any mistake. 

"I know," Missy said simply, and Kate release a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. 

"And I'm Clara, by the way," said Clara, who'd just appeared besides the Doctor, with a bold, warm smile. 

"Clara," Missy repeated blankly, her cold eyes searching for Clara's ones, her hand reaching out for a hand Clara gave her after and instant of hesitation and a look shared with the Doctor. A smile spreaded on the Mistress's lips, even warmer than the one she'd given the Doctor. "Of course, Clara," she said, "my Clara." 

Clara flinched slightly at the affection in the Mistress' voice, a worried look crossing her face at Missy's choice of words. 

"Don't worry child," Missy continued softly, misunderstanding Clara's look, "I'll be fine." 

"Of couse you'll be," Clara answered automatically. "I'll be back in a second," she added and with that she released Missy's hand and disappeared down a corridor. 

"Is she okay?" the Mistress asked immediately the Doctor, seeming genuinely hurt by Clara's attitude. 

"She's just shocked," Kate answered before he can. "We've been attacked and we nearly lost you." 

"What happened?," Missy inquired, sitting up and rubbing softly at her temple. "I remember there were Cybermen," she shuddered, "God, I've got a terrible headache." 

"We've been attacked," Kate explained again, "our ennemy hypnotised you, tricked you into thinking you were the mastermind evilness of the day," she say coyly, a little smile grazing her lips, not bothering to hide how her hands trembled. Her lies were so bold. "I thought we'd lost you."

She hold bravely the Mistress scrutating, sceptic look. "Well, I'm back being myself now," she finally said with a shrug, "nothing a good night of sleep won't heal. Who was I thinking I was?" 

"You thought you were the Master."


End file.
